Tesla’s 2023 annual shareholder assembly was just a few hours in the past. Most of the issues offered there have been already offered within the firm’s Grasp Plan Half 3, Investor Day presentation, and former quarterly shareholder convention calls. Nevertheless, let’s have a look at just a few of the highlights.

Initially, as many have been hoping, or at the least arguing was wanted, Tesla is working exhausting on new fashions to diversify its product lineup. Tesla CEO Elon Musk indicated that the corporate is toiling away at bringing two new merchandise to market. “I simply wish to emphasize that we are literally constructing a brand new product,” Musk stated at first. Nevertheless, he additionally used the phrase “designing” proper after that: “We are literally designing a brand new product. We’re not sitting on our arms right here.” So, notice that by “constructing,” he didn’t imply “producing.” He later stated “There are two new merchandise that I believe you may be very enthusiastic about” — not only one.

With the approaching fashions nonetheless in design phases, I wouldn’t count on one to reach in 2023, and possibly not even 2024. We’ll see about 2025. That stated, Tesla is centered on the manufacturing facet of those autos already, as Musk added: “each the design of the merchandise and the manufacturing methods are head and shoulders above the rest that’s current in trade.” (Not the auto trade, however trade generally.) Tesla has been centered on “design for manufacturing” because the Mannequin 3, so it’s not new that manufacturing strategies can be taken into consideration in the course of the design part, however his assertion right here about Tesla innovation appears noteworthy. In fact, this broad declare of being far forward of the remainder of the trade is nothing new both — it’s been a standard chorus for years. There are variations of opinion on how legitimate these broad claims are. However it’s value noting that the Mannequin 3 and Mannequin Y have achieved the large scale, low manufacturing prices, and nice margins Tesla predicted. With out extra information about these new merchandise, nonetheless, it’s exhausting to have a lot of an opinion on the declare, however that is the place we’re for now.

Musk’s guess is that Tesla will produce 5 million models a yr of every of those coming merchandise.

Taking a look at its present Tesla fleet chief, Tesla Chairperson Robyn Denholm famous earlier within the presentation that the Tesla Mannequin Y was the perfect promoting car of any variety in Europe within the first quarter of 2023 (as we reported as effectively) and that it was additionally the highest promoting non-pickup car in the entire USA.

That’s 5 key highlights by my depend. Listed below are 10 extra highlights from the 2023 Tesla annual shareholder assembly (hyperlinks are to precise moments in Elon Musk’s presentation the place he talked about this stuff):

1. JB Straubel has rejoined Tesla by getting appointed to a place on the board of administrators.
2. Tesla has continued to enhance manufacturing unit employee security.
3. Tesla had practically 130,000 workers worldwide on the finish of 2022.
4. Tesla acquired 3.6 million job purposes final yr, and the highest two corporations on the earth the place engineers wished to work in 2022 had been SpaceX an Tesla.
5. Tesla’s new drive unit makes use of zero uncommon earth components.
6. Tesla is shifting to 48V structure in its automobiles — it will lower copper wants by about 75%.
7. Most people within the viewers indicated that they had used FSD, however then when requested what they considered the most recent construct, the response was reasonably muted (to my ear). Musk then famous “It’s actually attending to the purpose the place, at the least for me after I drive round, it’s a number of days between interventions.” Personally, this bolsters my assumption that the FSD improvement group focuses quite a bit on the best way to make Musk’s expertise higher, as a result of I can’t go 5 minutes on FSD with out an intervention, not to mention two days.
8. Notably, he then identified that the planning & management operate of FSD Beta hasn’t been utilizing neural nets thus far, and that’s “the final piece of the puzzle.”
9. Tesla is has the very best margins of any high-volume automaker on the earth.
10. Tesla is assured the Mannequin Y would be the greatest promoting automobile on the earth in 2023. It was already greatest promoting on the earth in Q1 2023.
11. Common uptime of a Tesla Supercharger is 99.95% — main the trade. (But it surely’s principally been at this degree for a number of years.)
12. The 5-year complete price of possession of a Mannequin 3, in keeping with Tesla, is equal to that of a Toyota Corolla.

Every other highlights I missed?

Nicely, yet one more notice from the Q&A was that Tesla will strive a bit of little bit of paid promoting and see the way it goes. The viewers cheered loudly for this, pushing Musk to genuinely extra ahead with that concept.

Additionally, for another Floridians like me, Tesla Insurance coverage will reportedly roll out to Florida later this yr.